Digital coax cable - plug/OCC?

Any cable is capable of of picking up noise, the 'digital' signal still uses electricity just like an analogue signal so keep any type of signal cable well away from power cables.

But different connections make it sound different? I'd say no, there's no way that can happen.

Other points of view are available

Don't forget they want to be 1.37 meters long:- snakeriveraudio.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=&products_id=80

Would you mind telling, what cable did you have in mind?

Hi Antonio,

yes the mega OCD twat I have living inside me has subscribed to the minimum length to prevent reflection philosophy . . . it does actually make technical sense.

To be honest a lot of the 'myths' surrounding certain long held beliefs in audio have actually turned out to have a fair amount of truth to me! Maybe its placebo/bias expectation, maybe I'm a sucker but placebo's can make things sound better and therefore worth it to me!

I've got my eye on these kind of cables (I know you're a fellow allies of the Express!). In my experience £50 spent on there will more often than not trump £50 spent on a traditional 'branded' manufacturer . . . . so I'm probably going to risk it to find out!

The first one looks the best to me.


www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002591328381.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.4d823c00nxha7u&mp=1

www.aliexpress.com/item/4001283923781.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.4d823c00nxha7u&mp=1

www.aliexpress.com/item/32827603175.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.4d823c00nxha7u&mp=1

 

Well done that man, I've got only one coaxial cable on my wish list and yours tallies with my choice, and I will add I've a checked on many cables  
For anyone interested my  RCA cable of choice is this one  www.aliexpress.com/item/4000751407281.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.6a9b2e0ebEclkM
And in at No.1 on the USB charts  www.aliexpress.com/item/32809556758.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.6a9b2e0ebEclkM
As for mains cable I've gone for a well priced, well made with excellent reviews (some of the reviews have now disappeared since I first saw this cable) , not only that if I were to make up a cable the plugs on this would be the ones I would go for.  One more thing, it is more expensive to buy the cable and plugs to make it yourself     www.aliexpress.com/item/4000749440018.html?spm=a2g0s.8937460.0.0.5f092e0ePPxFUy  and yes I do know it is not OCC.  Out of the three cables you have listed Optical, the last one is the one I would not go for, only a gut feeling, I've looked at all three previously.

Nearly forgot, should anyone see anything better please pop a link on here

Hello Antonio

Here is the feedback from the customer regarding the T&M cable, he was using a highly regarded branded American cable around £1200.

"Good afternoon Tony,
Very interesting listening to how much Clock cables affect sound quality.
The immediate impression of the reference cable was of increased focus on the sound of individual instruments, they became more seperated and coherent. Similar to the effect of getting a more pin sharp image in a photograph. The most impressive effect was on vocals which lost any degree of harshness and flowed easily, very natural. There was a similar effect to adding a grounding box in that some of the higher frequency attack of acoustic instruments was slightly blunted. Perhaps I am describing a lack of glare, I don't know, but I preferred the more raw sound .Overall it seems to reduce the dispersion of the sound and concentrate it in one place. I did put it on the first Mutec in the chain with little effect to be honest."

The cable he tested was made from this companies products. I have around 20 of these in the lab they were between £270 and £600 each depending on connector quality, termination and length. Fortunately at the moment 18Ghz is high enough for our work!

Quality coax

Interesting read for you

I have demonstrated this cable to many audio chaps it surprises them shall we say. I am not saying its the best, what I am saying is for most people it will outperform all of the usual cable suspects up to £1K imho

Hi Antonio

Cables lengths do seem to stir emotions within certain audiophile communities, I have a few customers who will not purchase a mains cables unless its two meters long I kid you not, all because of a certain magazine review a number of years ago.

Without question you would observe a difference in these cables make no mistake, especially with in a well set up system (not necessarily costly) as to whether you would feel its 'better' then that is for you only to decide.

The chap who sent in that feedback is 64 years old and has zero DCS in his system, a well respected integrated amplifier and Focal Utopia speakers MK III.

I have around 20 of the stock dcs cables with the gold plated ends, these are basic RG59 coax units for around £20 each.

From experience within a DCS set up just using the stock Vivaldi clock, you gain more upward performance from choosing the correct digital AES interconnect then spending lots on clock cables, I am not saying they do not make a difference, just not as much as the digital audio data stream imho. Its a cost Vs potential uplift in the sound each individual is different as will make their minds up accordingly

Once you have upgraded form the Vivaldi clock (which in reality is quite average, then I would certainly look at changing the clock cables.

I know a fair number of 'full stack' DCS owners that the full front end cable outlay is at least as much as the equipment.

For a full *ideal* loom you will require four (4) mains cables five (5) BNC clock cables six (6) AES or RCA digital interconnects plus one pair of analogue interconnects (2) so 17 in total!

Luckily most of us only require five!

There is some revamping of the dcs range due in the not to distant future as well as the dropping of some products like the network streaming bridge.

Sorry cable lengths for digital, my 75Ohm BNC clocks cables are 0.8 and 0.6m long for the master clock to each of the Mutec's have tried 1m identical versions and personally can hear zero difference, however my own system using some rather nifty data 're alignment methods' in the I2s stream. The clock cables are instantly noticeable if you change them, again personal preference as to whether each person feels the outlay is justified.

As with everything in audio each circumstances are different.

Hi Optical

Digital I find is far easier tha analogue!, especially with cart/arm combinations so many to chose from, however I find that keeping a presepctive on your current equipment level and what you are looking to achieve given your circumstances are a great grounding point.

You can make a good digital cable for around £75 to £100 that could out perform a lot of well repected brands offerings up to £500, similarly you could have an opposing effect if incorrect impleimented.

With anaogue reently I have beeen trying a new arm/cart set up on our Delphi MK VI gen II a Thales simplicity MK II and a nice jap ushi cartridge quite something, never really liked the SME sound found it to mechanical this arms are quite something and very comparable to sme v current pricing.

Anyway happy to assist where I can

There is something very admirable about your concrete rigid stance on the subject Martin (I actually mean that). The potential for improvement intrigues me. To be fair I think the conversation (although not so obviously perhaps) was shifted toward the digital domain in general, so referring to clocks/jitter etc, which is a universally regarded and recognised factor in the reproduction quality of digital. Regarding cables that do the simple job of carrying digital signal, a 'cheap' perfectly well designed cable may well be adequate in most systems so I agree with you there (if you meant cables specifically). 

Where logic indicates there should be a potential audible improvement to me, is the speed/accuracy of re-clocking or piecing together of the datastream. Whether or not a cable can play much part in this I really cannot decide. 

BUT in summery I think there is a lot more to be improved/gained in the digital domain from various methods than you seem to give credit for. That's fine, it's good to have a difference of opinion.

Martin

It is good to have a postive reinforcement of your beliefs which is why is good to have counter balances here on AA.

Without question I could not deliver the performance I have wihout specific mains/cabling and clocking solutions and to discern between with and without such pieces does not require any bat eared human or some wonder writing sitting in a glass tower expelling the virtues of roduct 'x' and 'y'.

So I appreciate the counter balance you bring here.

At this point I have written this three Fooking times and getting seriously pissed off now

This morning, I feel clarification would help you chaps in the understanding of how digital audio data is actually 'moved' if you like and how it is made up and used within an audio system.
Audio data is sent via a serial data interface know as Inter IC Sound (I2s) It is a synchronous bus based on three wires which are used to pass multiple channels of audio data over a single line for use in connecting digital audio devices together.

Philips developed this format back in the dark ages of 1986! with a revision in 1996.

I2s format

This can be broken down to the following channels:

left Justified

Right Justified

TDM (Time Domain Multiplexed)


Simplified explanation of the Is2 format not to technical!


So you have three individual data streams contained within the PCM signal itself:

Serial clock

Word Select This is used to perform the data syncing for the serial data line (hence why this is important!) it can be make or break for quality audio this is generated by extracting the incoming data and by using the internal TXCO etc and PLL (phase lock loop circuit) the word clock can be refined to give improved serial data alignment.

Serial data this has two options MSB and LSB (most significant bit and least significant bit)

Getting back to clocks in general accepted wisdom is that the the straighter the 'leading edge' the wave form the more desirable the clock will be, this can measured with a rise time feature on most scopes or you can use curses or old fashioned algebra!)

Rise time

Now you can have an all singing and dancing femto second oscillator (clock) side bar fact for you In one femtosecond, light travels just 300 nanometers — about the size of the biggest particle that can pass through a HEPA filter, and just slightly larger than the smallest bacteria!


However the clock is just one part of the circuit this is responsible for generating that all important word clock timing signal and as discussed in the previous post many factors effect this performance!

So now we have a super fast ultra straight leading edge that our clock is providing 'Cracking Cheese Gromit' moment must be giving me sublime SQ

Well not so fast Captain timing, you see there are by products of having a almost vertical straight edge to the leading portion of the wave form yes indeed harmonic content also increases exponentially, Oh what does that mean?

Example for you, today's super dac chips with eight (8) individual dac inside each chip (impressive eh?)  both Sabre and AKM has gone down this route these have totally different requirements for say the good old TI PCM 63K where you bog stand 16.394Mhz was all you required to give you that juicy red book standard  of 44.1Khz. Or that mind blowing figure of 18.432Mhz for the studio 48Khz mode.

These days clocks are generally much higher in frequency for this multi dac chips around 100Mhz (100 Million hertz) they need to be this frequency to enable the circuitry they use to generate the bigger sampling frequencies up to 768Khz, they do this by use of frequencies dividers and multiplexers so only one clock frequency is required.


However having a femto second clock @ 100Mhz does bring other challenges to the equation such as unwanted spurious noise sitting on both clock and power lines recently I have experience with this on a customer project, his dac (given top billing and best ever on a well known measurement internet review site at the point) problem was it was a hard as nails made Naim sound like Harbeth's yes it was very detailed open and powerful but seriously brittle.

Measuring the unit (audio wise on R&S UPV) all the usual audio traits were very good indeed, THD/IMD/SINAD etc. What's the issue here then?

Taking a closer look with a spectrum analyzer and using rf sniffer probes in conjunction with a specially designed RF current probe revealed spurious RF content reaching to around 2.5Ghz (2.5 Billion Hertz) sitting on the analogue output stage! This turned out to be emanating for the Crytek uber clock which was generating over 25 first order harmonic spikes.

So what I here you cry, our hearing is limited to around 15-16Khz for us bunch on here now, so with zero possibility of hearing these frequencies (if you could I would be really worried you have alien DNA at the very least )

Back to reality, however these frequencies can and do effect other components within the audio box,really?  The spurious noise has all kinds of side effects on other electronics components inside your audio equipment which in turn causes SQ issues.

Below are image of before and after I rectified the RF noise within this particular dac, part of the remedy was to remove the Crystek clock and substitute  a 'lesser clock' in specs but with a more sympathetic leading edge plus some internal RF work on certain parts of the power supply and output stage. Also this particular product would have never passed CE certification in a million years yet it was given the usual smoke up its ass badge

Result was vastly superior tonal quality, lower noise floor, zero glass shard type sound piecing your tympanic membrane sound and much much more long term listen ability plus a very happy customer.






None of this shows up on a 20hz-20Khz audio analyzer, unless you have done a BEFORE and after work report then the differences can be seen imho.
This is a spectral plot from 10Khz to 2Ghz, the best audio analyzers top out @ 400Khz I believe with limited RBW  (resolution band width) for FFT (just over 1/500th of one of the horizontal divisions on the above image)

So we have the ability to look at the Inter IC Sound serial bus (I2s) in its raw format and view the data packets as Hex/Binary/decimal and dB decoding via our digital section of the scope while also looking at the eye pattern and FFT (Fast Fourier Transforms of the signal.

In essence we can see all of the data and its flaws in wide open detail from start to finish, its a great ability to have and to analyzer how each company goes about its methodology of making ' great audio'


Hope that clarifies the subject some more for you.

Hi Antonio,

thanks for the follow up. Does this answer your question . . . ?? Maybe, maybe not! Haha.



I took some advice and ended up making my own too . . . .

Front to back is:

5N OCC 50cm 75ohm cable with pure copper RCA's

6N OCC (silver tinned) 75ohm cable with 1 pure copper and 1 BNC termination

6N OCC (silver tinned) 75ohm cable with pure copper RCA's

5N OCC 75cm 75ohm cable with pure copper RCA's - purchased from Oli

QED Reference digital 40 (50cm)

Canare 75ohm 1 RCA and 1 BNC connection (75cm)


Why do I have so many cables? Well becasue I bought a bloody Mutec and have two DAC's to run off it . . . .


I haven't even got started comparing AES cables yet! haha.

Utter madness I know, no need to tell me . . . .

Yes the consensus is/was that using toslink optical cable could create reflection if it was less than around 1.5 - or pretty much exactly what you said, and said better than I!

I had always assumed with coax cable that the shorter the better (as long as there are no sharp bends collapsing the structure of the cable etc), however I have found that for some reason the cables around 75cm in length seem to outperform cables made of exactly the same material (including plugs) which are shorter. Weird.

As you say there are probably some logical explanations for this kind of cable behavior . . . . . 


Or maybe there isn't . . . . but anyway, they do seem to sound different. 


In my systems coax always sounds better than Toslink, although theoretically Toslink does hold electronic isolation advantages . . . . 

Yeah you're right, I had assumed it shouldn't affect COAX in the same way it does sp/dif (optical) cable, but it seems it could/does.

Reducing 'inaudible' jitter really has made a difference using the Mutec, (or whatever else it's doing) so maybe reducing 'inaudible' reflections (by making all digital cables >1.5m, of which there are 3 going into and out of the Mutec!) could further improve the presentation. . . .